Bothying in the Highlands

Travelled up to Scotland on the Friday, took 10 1/2 hours, for our bothy experience. Bothies are small stone or wood cottages in the middle of nowhere. Most of them were old sheppard accommodation and now serve as mountain shelters for walkers. They are very rudimentary places with no water, toilets or electricity. You get your water from nearby rivers and collect firewood for cooking. It was the isolation and being away from technology in beautiful surroundings that appealed to me most, and of course being one of my little adventures, my bitesize travelling buddy, Nicky came too. Walked into the first bothy, Glenn Dugh Lighe, near Glenfinnan in the dark and nearly missed it completely. It was an easy 3 mile walk in though, with very little climbing, which was good as we were well weighted down with our backpacks. Passed an uneventful night sleeping on the floor.

The second bothy, Brunachan near Roy Bridge was more isolated and required a river crossing. Luckily the river wasn't too high, being just above the knees at its highest point, but was fairly wide and fast flowing, made more difficult by the fact that we were carrying so much wood, I felt like I could topple over at any moment!! Nicky did well, having never done anything like this before. I much prefered this bothy though, the scenary was amazing and it really was in the wilds. It was slightly larger than Glenn Dugh Lighe. We had company that night with a man who had done the Ben Nevis race that day and his friend who was the General Secretary of the Mountain Bothies Association. They were amaxed that Nicky and I were bothy virgins as we got too quickly with sawing wood, lighting fires and laying out sleeping areas.

I enjoyed the bothy experience, and I'm glad that I've finally done it after talking about it for many years, but it isn't something that I would particularly like to repeat. The isolation and mountain walking was great, but I prefer the relative luxury of hostelling. You still meet some interesting, like minded people in hostels, but don't come home stinking of bonfires!!